Principles of Film Form

Principles of Film Form

Film Form – a system of principles and the relationships of those principles… the overall interrelation among various systems of elements, which fulfill one or more roles in the whole system.

5 general principles:

1.) Function 2.) similarity and repetition 3.) difference and variation 4.) development 5.)unity/disunity

Function – on the most basic level, it is simply the purpose of or reason for an element.

-does not depend on the filmmaker’s intent

-almost always multiple : narrative (plot and story) and stylistic (genre, production values, director’s influence)

-motivation: what is the justification for something in a movie

REMEMBER – Movies are carefully planned and what we see in a movie is supposed to be there.

Similarity and Repetition – established patterns and satisfaction of formal expectations

-able to predict the next step in a series

-most basic levels: we recall and identification of characters and setting

-more subtly: we observe patterns in lines of dialogue, bits of music, camera positions, characters’ behavior, and story action

-motif – any significant repeated element in a film – a color, a place, a person, a sound, lighting or color pattern, character trait, or camera position

-parallelism – the process whereby a movie cues the spectator to compare two or more distinct elements by highlighting some similarity.

Difference and Variation – need for variety, contrast, and changes in a movie

-motifs are never repeated exactly

-opposition of elements… most often clashes between characters – these are the conflicts that drive or move the story along or create a juxtaposition

-juxtaposition – place two like thing or ideas next to one another for comparison / contrast

Development – the patterning of similar and differing elements as well as the progression of said elements throughout the movie. Labeled with capital letters (ex. ABCACDADE)

-formal development can refer to the basic notion of beginning, middle, and end.

-forms ideas of genre as patterns are evident like a journey, a search, a pattern of mystery

-segmentation – a written outline of a movie broken into its major and minor parts marked with numbers and letters

-scenes – labeled with numbers

-actions in scene – labeled with small case letters

Unity/Disunity – how the use of elements affect the overall film and how we perceive the relationships as clear and economically (efficiently) used.

“tight” – a film with unity, has no gaps in the formal relationships

-every element present has a specific set of functions, similarities and differences are determinable, the form develops logically, and there are no unnecessary elements.

-IS A MATTER OF DEGREE : no film is perfect, each has a puzzling element, a dangling question, an unmotivated action, something left incomplete

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art, An Introduction.

New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2001.

Watching & Analyzing Film
excerpted from Bordwell and Thompsons Film Art: An Introduction

5 Principles of Form | Major Elements of Film | Questions for Brainstorming | Top

Evaluating Film: The Five Principles of Form
Function | Similarity & Repetition | Development | Difference & Variation | Unity/Disunity

1. Function
Of any element in a film, we can ask: What are its functions? Its our job as film analysts to uncover the motivation behind every character action, accident, sound, color, lighting effect, etc.

2. Similarity and Repetition
Repetition is basic to our understanding of any film. Any significant repeated element in a film is a called a motif. We may choose to discuss the motifs of Rhapsody in August in your last scenario. A motif may be a color, an object, a person, a place, a sound, a pattern of lighting, or even a type of movement.
Film form also utilizes general similarities as well as exact duplication through repetition. Motifs, then, assist in creating parallelism. Our recognition of parallelism provides part of our pleasure in watching a film, much as the echo of rhymes can contribute to the power of poetry.

3. Development
What elements do you recognize developing from one part of the film to the next?
Think of formal development as a progression moving from X through Y to Z.

4. Difference and Variation
Although motifs may be repeated, those motifs will seldom be repeated exactly. Variation will appear. Characters may have different desires that motivate the action of the narrative. Settings may be opposed. Voices may differ, as may color, space (claustrophobic vs. wide open), number, music quality, pace, etc.
Its important to note that differences will not always be simple oppositions of one thing to another. Some films may present a gradation of differences, where characters, for example, fall on different places on a certain line of desire and action.

5. Unity/Disunity
When all of the relationships we perceive within a film are clear and economically interwoven, we say that the film has unity. Yet almost no film is so tight as to leave no ends dangling.
Suppose we saw a film in which several characters die mysteriously, and we never find out why. This film leaves a number of loose ends, but the repetition suggests that the omission of clear explanations is not just a mistake. Their disunity is systematic and intentional, and suggests a deeper meaning that could be the topic of an analysis.

5 Principles of Form | Major Elements of Film | Questions for Brainstorming | Top

A Few Major Elements of Film
Time | Mise-en-scene | Sound

Time: Order, Duration, and Frequency
Temporal order: Are there flashbacks? Flashforwards? Do we move progressively forward in time at all times, or do we take steps backwards? Is there more than one timeline? (a story of the past moving in order, transposed against a story of the present?) Why?

Duration: There are 3 types of duration: temporal duration, plot duration, and screen duration.

1) Temporal duration. Where does the film begin and end, on a timeline? How many days, months, years does it seem to cover?
2) Plot duration. What parts of the timeline are highlighted and which are left out? Does the film skip over anything? What points of time, or moments in time, does the film show us?
3) Screen duration. This is how long the movie actually is. Is it a 116 minute feature-length film, a 335 minute epic, or a 7 minute short?

Temporal frequency: In other words, how frequently do we see certain moments in time? Rocky training example!

Mise-en-scene
= everything that appears in a film frame.

• Setting -- location, size, shape, etc. of the space
• Costume and make-up
• Lighting from the front, the side, underneath, spotlight, daylight, blinding, too dark and shadowy, hue of light (blue, pink, yellow, etc.)
• Figure expression and movement slouching, graceful, wide steps, disabled, hyper, etc.
• Acting and actuality how realistic is the acting? Is it a caricature, stereotypical? Marlon Brando and James Dean, for example, relied upon method acting -- could you define what that is based on their performances?
• Space color palette (what is the intensity and saturation of the colors), texture (snow, desert, mountains, carpet, etc.), flat or hilly, movement, balance of objects in space and symmetry of single frames.

Sound
Sound in cinema is of three types: speech, music, and noise (also called sound effects).
Diegetic (is any sound whose source is a character or object in the story) and nondiegetic (anything that comes from off stage or whose source is outside the story space).
Synchronous vs. asynchronous.
Also listen for the following acoustic or dimensional distinctions between sounds: Loudness, pitch, timbre, rhythm, and fidelity.

5 Principles of Form | Major Elements of Film | Questions for Brainstorming | Top

A List of Questions for Brainstorming:

• Where do we begin, and why? Do we jump right into the corner and have to figure out whats happening, or are we given some kind of exposition that tells us where we are? AKA ? What are we allowed to know, and what is withheld from us? Is this information contradicted at any point in the movie?
• What is the opening musical score like? Does it complement or clash with what were seeing visually?
• Who is the narrator? Do we trust him/her? How is he/she presented (dress, personality, quirky mannerisms, relationship with other characters)? Is he/she an outsider or a member of the community?
• Is there an argument presented in the film? If so, who is doing the arguing, and who is that subject trying to persuade? Is the film as a whole making an argument? Are you, the viewer, a target? Are you asked to act in a certain way after the film ends? To think differently about something?

5 Principles of Form | Major Elements of Film | Questions for Brainstorming | Top